VK: Top incomes up sharply

Photo: Depositphotos.com
Photo: Depositphotos.com

CEO pay jumped 32% last year, according to a survey by the Volkskrant of 112 top executives in the Netherlands.

Employee wages in collective bargaining agreements, meanwhile, only went up 2.2%. Company chiefs now earn on average 40 times as much as a typical employee. In 2020, that was 35 times.

The newspaper conducts an annual survey of more than 100 large corporations and organisations in the Netherlands, including Booking, chip maker ASML, Heineken and Shell.

The highest-paid CEO was Lucian Grainge, who runs the American-Dutch music company Universal Music Group. He took home 274.3 million euros, in part because of a highly successful IPO when the company went public in Amsterdam in September. His earnings are by far the highest of any CEO at a Dutch company.

Online travel website Booking came in second place. The company’s CEO Glenn Fogel took home of 24.9 million euros.

According to the Volkskrant, companies bounced back must faster than expected after the pandemic, allowing for companies to give larger than anticipated bonuses.

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